Essay
Western Politics in an African Context
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First essay for the POL100F course at UCT. Received an A for this essay.
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IntroductionThe idea of governance in modern political thought presents an arguably consequentialist
view of politics. In this, the concepts of good and evil are viewed as the facilitator for
governance and the preservation of political authority depends on its efficacy at maintaining
the ideal balance between good and evil in order to make a society function well. The
universal basis of this is a societal need to advance the common good and impede the
common evil by function of government. (Mansfield, 1998: 219-230)
Moral philosophers understand that good and evil are subjective paradigms and in the context
of political thought they depend entirely on the culture of their origin. They are not
nomothetic concepts and given that they vary by culture it follows that the mode of
governance would necessarily have to vary by culture too. (Kritzman, 1990: 1977-1984)
In the field of politics, few things can be as damaging as the broad agency that mainstream
political disciplines have. When applied with little regard for the identity, context and the
ideals of the people that they are being applied to, the idea of painting populations with the
same political brush is the very thing that leads to genocide, racism and exploitation. (Teffo,
2002) Context is extremely important within political systems, so, given that the majority of
modern political and philosophical disciplines originate from and were designed for the
specific context of western societies, it's unsurprising that African political culture suffers
greatly from a lack of political identity. The reason that western disciplinary knowledge
cannot fully explain the nature of African thought in political culture is simply because
context is missing. Western disciplinary knowledge cannot explain a culture that it is not a
part of.
The History of Western Political Thought and the Standardisation of Politics Worldwide.
, The premise for most of western philosophy has always been this idea of progressivism and
modernism. Paul de Man describes it as, "Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out
whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true
present, a point of origin that marks a new departure." During the colonial era, this particular
school of thought manifested as the wests desire to establish and utilise modernity throughout
many of the, as yet, undeveloped countries. The west viewed this as, "expanding humanities
frontiers." Unfortunately for many of these undeveloped countries," humanity" was a
subjective phrase and the western body politic directly equated a populations modernity to
their legitimacy of humanity. Given that the perception of the African rationale and
sensibilities were considered tribalistic and rudimentary it was predictable that the western
body politic would not recognize Africa's political legitimacy; after all, countries whose
political legitimacy was recognized were in no danger of colonization. (Bird-David, 1993:
112)
During the Age of Enlightenment, political thought broadened from rudimentary systems of
monarchy and small scale self-governance to the more complex systems of democracy and
communism resembling what we've come to know them as today. The colonies would
invariably adopt these styles of governance as their coloniser progressed. Consistent with
that, the considerations of ethical functions and the western attitude towards the necessity of
capital gain in order to achieve fulfilment and live a good life are also concepts that colonised
countries have been forced to adopt. (Wheeler, 1980: 435-451) At this point the idea of the
social contract in governance was also introduced by Thomas Hobbes, although its
dispensation did not cover all citizens equally given that indigenous inhabitants of many of
these colonies were considered subhuman. The reason that these concepts sound familiar is
because this is in fact the same mode of political thought that has been adopted by the vast
majority of the political world, imposed that is, through colonial rule; the function of
modernity in western political culture.
What is the Experience of the Black Colonised?
Unfortunately African political and moral philosophy is not documented well, if at all.
Traditional African political thought, though not as codified as western thought, can still be
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